Dad's housework has less dollar value than Mom's

By Francesca Trianni, REUTERS

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

The value of work a father typically does around the house has increased in the last year, but a mother's work is still worth far more, according to a new job survey that puts dollar figures on parental responsibilities.

Ahead of Father's Day on June 16, insurance news website Insure.com on Monday released its annual "Father's Day Index."

To calculate the index, the website applied wage data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to 13 traditionally male household tasks ranging from repairing leaky pipes to barbecuing.

The index increased the value of fathers' housekeeping contributions when calculating life insurance.

Their work is now worth $23,344, up from $20,248 last year, a change largely due to higher mean hourly wages for jobs such as fixing plumbing, moving furniture and mowing lawns.

But mothers were worth $59,862, according to the same survey released before Mother's Day last month, down from $60,182 in 2012. Mothers' contributions ranged from cleaning up to nursing children's wounds and shopping for the family.

The findings are notable as recent studies found women still bearing the bulk of housekeeping duties but earning less in comparison to their male counterparts.

In 2011, the latest year for which data is available, 83 percent of women and 65 percent of men spent time each day doing chores such as cleaning and cooking, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The figures have changed little in the last decade.

By comparison, in 2011 women earned 82.2 percent of what men earned, according to a study by the Institute for Women's Policy Research.